…and I went from having two living parents to one who was coping with her own grief. It was the true end of a long, happy childhood.
I never went through that stage of hostile alienation towards parents I saw many of my friends go through in high school and college. Maybe it’s because Mom and Dad had me when they were young and our age difference was not so great. Through much of my childhood and well into my adult years, they were an active, good-looking, often fascinating couple, with their own ups and downs, their own adventures.
So it was hardest to say goodbye to that portion of my life when Dad was alive. Goodbye to visiting a crowded, busy house near the beach or on the mountaintop. To being introduced to friends he had made, or my mother had made, then hearing my parents talk about them. Goodbye to the parties they threw. Goodbye to the timbre of Dad’s voice when he told a story, to Mom chiming in, her laughter. Goodbye to the front door closing as he left to play his game of tennis, to the sound of tires on gravel when he came back. Goodbye to the smoothies he made for us all in the morning, the drinks he poured or mixed for us at sunset. Goodbye to occassionally wondering, as I went through my own routine here in California, what he and my mother were doing or saying on the other side of the country at that moment.
All that stopped a decade ago, but still, when I watch an interesting movie, read an interesting book, see some dramatic development in politics or world news, I have to remind myself I can’t call him and ask him about it. I won’t hear, over the phone, Mom and Dad tossing the subject between them, agreeing or disagreeing. When I hang up, I can’t imagine that they are still talking about it, and then, no doubt, dissecting my own life, approving or disapproving.
It didn’t all vanish in one day. It slowly faded as Dad’s health faded and my mother struggled, her life focused more and more on keeping him alive and comfortable. And finally, it ended.
The least children can do is outlive their parents. I understand that, and I know I should embrace the price paid, the emptiness that rushes in when a mother or father dies. But I still dread the emptiness to come.
Pam Troy 